Discussion Questions for Wednesday, September 1
After reading the questions below and deciding which one(s) you want to respond to (you're expected to respond once every three classes, on average), click on the appropriate thread to write your response as a reply. If you have not yet registered an account with wikispaces and requested to join this site, you will need to do so to post a response (see the How to Wiki page for instructions).
What, if anything, is "dramatic" about the "Dramatic Chipmunk" YouTube video? Based on your answer, how would you define the quality of "drama"? And why do people seek it out, even in the most unlikely of places?
What is meant by a YouTube performance meme (as in Know Your Meme)? As examples, can you name any re-enactment memes
that you had seen prior to this class (i.e., not re-mixes, mash-ups, autotuning, etc., but actually people filming themselves re-enacting something that already existed on YouTube) ? What is it about a meme like "Charlie Bit Me" that would lead people to watch it, forward it to others, re-enact it, film that re-enactment, and upload that re-enactment to YouTube for still more others to watch? Why this video, or any other particular video meme (dramatic chipmunk, Soulja Boy, Numa Numa, etc.)?
On the early re-enactments of Gary Brolsma's "Numa Numa" -- a video webcam performance whose international roots stretched from Moldova to Japan to New Jersey -- anthropologist Michael Wesch quotes Douglas Wolk to the effect that these re-enactments "start to look less like an infectious joke than a new cultural order" (“An Anthroplogical Introduction to YouTube,” 0:00-5:50, and 12:56-17:05,http://mediatedcultures.net/mediatedculture.htm). What what that new cultural order be, exactly, and what is the meaning (for Wolk, or Wesch) of the "ritual" that people are enacting in performing their re-enactments or re-visions of Brolma's original performance? How would Wesch answer the charge that claims to the importance of these performances is just "hype," that these are just people dancing and having fun, and that there's no big meaning beyond that?
After reading the questions below and deciding which one(s) you want to respond to (you're expected to respond once every three classes, on average), click on the appropriate thread to write your response as a reply. If you have not yet registered an account with wikispaces and requested to join this site, you will need to do so to post a response (see the How to Wiki page for instructions).
that you had seen prior to this class (i.e., not re-mixes, mash-ups, autotuning, etc., but actually people filming themselves re-enacting something that already existed on YouTube) ? What is it about a meme like "Charlie Bit Me" that would lead people to watch it, forward it to others, re-enact it, film that re-enactment, and upload that re-enactment to YouTube for still more others to watch? Why this video, or any other particular video meme (dramatic chipmunk, Soulja Boy, Numa Numa, etc.)?